Mycroft Mark 2 – Meet The Open Source AI Voice Assistant

Mycroft is a project that, until now, required some computer know-how to get going. What might be easy for a technology hobbyist or professional could be an intimidating experience for the average user. Because of this, there has been glaring void in the landscape of personal assistant software.

The only feasible options for the technically lay are the ones that are devoid of all privacy and informational control. This is where Mycroft, Mark II, can change things, but it’s going to require help from the community.

Mycroft currently only runs on Linux, but work is being done to bring it to other platforms. The Raspberry Pi is the go-to hardware for Mycroft, so the support is excellent, outside of that, there are build instructions for Debian/Ubuntu and compatible derivatives, as well as Arch Linux, and KDE Plasmoid.

While a pre-built Raspberry Pi image exists, if you’re installing on other hardware, you might be stuck waiting a while given that there are sources to download and packages that require compilation.

Anyone with a reasonably modern computer and a decent internet connection should be able to get it done in less than half an hour, though. But if you’re unfamiliar with Git and the command-line, this really isn’t for you.

These are the barriers to entries that currently exist and send all those who are savvy enough over to the sales pitch assistants that pretend to be personal assistants.

Mycroft Mark II Kickstarter crowdfunding started on January 25th, 2018.

Mycroft needs and deserves community backing. Whether you’re pledging toward a new Mark II unit, contributing to the project, creating new Skills (which we’ll be covering soon), or even reporting bugs, all help is welcome and the Mycroft team has immense appreciation and respect for the community upon which Mycroft has been built.

Don’t forget to check them out. Even if you have to spin up a virtual machine to give it a try, I highly recommend it, it’s a lot of fun.